We surveyed our nursing community to see what you thought about the issues over the Kaci Hickox situation as well as its impact on nurses and healthcare workers. We also asked about your thoughts on quarantining all healthcare workers who have cared for Ebola patients. These issues have certainly generated lots of discussion within our allnurses community. We've read what some of you have said in the public threads......now you can see what more than 3,800 said in private.

To Quarantine or Not to Quarantine......That is the Question that we posed last Thursday. We just want to thank the 3800+ of you nurses who took the time to participate in the latest survey. Your voices have been heard and here is what you said about Kaci Hickox and other healthcare workers who have cared for Ebola patients.

Many posters felt that nurses who took care of Ebola patients should voluntarily quarantine themselves and not run the risk of infecting others....we should err on the side of caution. Some thought quarantine should be mandatory. Many comments were made that we don't know enough about Ebola, and that is causing a lot of discomfort. Some felt that quarantine was not necessary since she is asymptomatic, and some interesting comments pointed to hysteria and reactionism to the possible need for quarantine. Other comments included that the nurses should get paid for this time and several others weren't quite sure of the need for quarantine or not and wanted more information. Some felt "this nurse should be setting a good example for others."

There were 581 comments on this question

The second question garnered 441 comments.

Many comments were made to the effect that this nurse needed to more closely monitor her interactions with the media. Nurses usually have no public relations experience and for this nurse it was the cause of much negative publicity. "Kaci has turned this into a media frenzy." While many agree with her position, they feel she has handled this poorly.

Summary of comments
There were over 2300 comments:

Most responders said that until we know more we should quarantine with pay. Many felt that education and following CDC guidelines was the way to deal with healthcare workers exposed to Ebola. Another commonality was to provide more information to the public so that hysteria and panic was averted. Many posters felt that self-quarantine was the way to go and others felt that these healthcare workers should be monitored in a CDC facility.